Friday Placebo Book Report: In Which I Read an Inert Substance...

I didn’t read a book this week because I’ve been studying my nutrition text and it is long and I take notes the old-fashioned way (My kid said, “What are you doing?”  I said, “Copying out the chapter learning objectives, writing out the vocabulary definitions, and taking chapter notes.”  He said, “Whoa!  You actually do all that stuff they tell you to do in school.  I didn’t think anybody actually did that!”) because it works for me.  However, because reading leads to thinking (“A dangerous pastime!”), I found myself wondering about placebos.

My other kid, handily enough, is a librarian, so when my personal internet search skills fail, I call him in to find out what I want to know; this is the privilege I get for having taken him to the library in the first place.

I had two main questions.  The first one was about the inactivity of placebos.  I’ve been reading in a variety of places and experimenting on my own bodily chemistry set (not scientifically valid, but personally useful) about sugar, so the use of “sugar pills” as placebos made me wonder how the decision was made that a substance had no effect.  It turns out that not having an effect is not important; it is not having an effect on the condition in question.

The second one was about placebos and exercise research.  The gold standard for research is a double-blind study in which neither the experimenters nor the subjects know who is in the experimental group and who is in the control group.  It is challenging not to know whether we are exercising or not, so I wondered if some smart people had figured out a way around it.  The answer is no.  What tends to happen is that several groups of people with whatever condition are randomly assigned to an exercise group (or one of several exercise groups) or a control group “waiting list.”

At this point, everyone may be wondering why I even care.  I believe in science, but it has to be good science, well-conducted, ethical, and verifiable.  We all need to think about how science is made and use our critical faculties to evaluate the claims and assumptions embedded in our science.  This makes us smarter and less likely to be hoodwinked by those who would like to exploit us.

Whole

Fitness, in my opinion, is not just about exercise.  It’s holistic (I am allowed to use this poor, abused word because I’m from Berkeley…).  It’s about what we do to feel healthy and good.

For many of us, this does mean exercise to help our bodies function better.  We are made to move and our culture often gets in the way of that movement; we have to find ways to put it back in our lives so we can be the strong people we were designed to be.

It also means eating food that nourishes us.  Food is more than a collection of vitamins and minerals and calories.  It has implications and subtle effects.  This is why we have the concept of comfort food, although we may want to examine whether we do actually feel more comforted or comfortable when we eat some of the things we call by that name.

It means sleeping when we are tired.  Most of us don’t get enough sleep.  Exhausted people are not healthy and happy people.

And it means having fun.  We need to let go of the bad stresses of our lives.  We need to breathe and laugh and connect.

The good news is that we can begin with any of the parts and move on to the next when we are ready.  Let’s go.

Spiral!

Somehow the downward spiral has become a more frequent image than the upward one.  Maybe it’s that pesky Newton and his second law of thermodynamics at work:  we see chaos happening.  The thing is, the upward spiral can be a powerful force.

One day, we get moving with some cardio.  We feel better and we try out that yoga class we’ve been thinking about.  We realize that we’d like to be stronger, so we lift a few weights.  Our clothes get looser and we kind of like that, so we decide that maybe vegetables deserve a second chance in our diets.  A few months later and we realize that our couch is lonely, we have tons more energy, and our brains our sharper than ever.

There are a couple of things that can get in the way of all that powerful goodness.  One is fear.  We are used to the couch.  We bond over donuts.  What will we talk about with Aunt Matilda now that we aren’t up on all the new binge shows?  And maybe we aren’t the ones who are afraid.  Maybe we have a buddy or a partner who worries that now that we are getting so strong and wonderful we won’t stick around.  Maybe our moms are worried that we won’t be able to eat all the traditional foods at holidays any more.

Another is fatigue.  We have to climb the spiral one step at a time.  Otherwise, we wear ourselves out and slide back down to where we started.

We can do wonderful things when we are patient and kind to ourselves.  Let’s be brave and smart.